Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
Elvir Švrakić, CEO of Hayat TV Sarajevo and president of the Association of Media Industry of Bosnia and Herzegovina sent an open letter to agencies and media in BiH, with the intention to once again draw attention to the alarming situation in the media industry caused by the action of, as Švrakić calls it, a “criminal media group”. Given the gravity of the situation which could lead to the breakup of the media market in BiH, we are publishing this letter in its entirety:
Dear Colleagues,
I hope this letter finds you well, healthy, and rested.
I’m writing to remind you of all the developments regarding research in BiH, and all the problems that have led to this situation:
- You are all familiar with the evidence that the companies Audience Measurement and TV1 are proprietary related parties, through the founder of offshore companies in Cyprus, Hasen Mašović, and through the person who’s behind all this, Safet Oručević. You’ve all received these evidence that are still publicly available on digital networks.
- You are all familiar with the fact that the Institute of Metrology of BiH completely non-transparently and illegally issued a Decision on introduction of this area into metrology.
- You are all familiar with the fact that six legal entities had hired an independent researcher, Valicon, which in a telephone survey in two time slots, on a sample of 1,000 households, compared the results and thus proved that the ratings we receive from the AM are nowhere near what Valicon got in their research.
- You are all familiar with the fact that the researcher AM falsified the results of monitoring of aired commercials on the TV network Mreža, for which there are undisputable evidence, recordings and even monitoring done by the independent monitoring house Mareco Index Bosnia, thus directly causing damage to the majority of international clients.
- You are all familiar with the fact that seven legal entities filed a motion with the Competition Council and won the dispute, by which AM was issued a fine of 30,000 BAM for lack of transparency in business, and the responsible person a fine of 5,000 BAM for failing to provide the Competition Council the following documents:
- Registration of the company, ie. the names of the real owners of the company
- Contract with Nielsen
- Most of you are aware that ten legal entities have requested an audit of AM, which are: BHT, PINK, ATV, Hayat, Plus, Universal Media, Aquarius, Direct Media, Media House and Fabrika, and after two-and-a-half months of correspondence and deflections to our requests for meeting, we received an answer: “Pertaining to this, we wish to note that in order for an audit to be valid and justified, it should be done in the name of the entire industry, and not just a part of it, so efforts should be made to that end,” as well as “Audit will be done after the Establishment Survey, which has already been arranged.”
- You are all familiar with the fact that at the meeting in Zagreb, which was attended by Nataša Tešanović and I, Nielsen explicitly banned AM from using the name of Nielsen on any of their documents.
- You are all familiar with the fact that Nielsen sold hardware and software to the Cyprus offshore company NMAM, founder of the Sarajevo company AM, and that their sole business relations currently are maintenance of the license.
- You are all aware of the fact that we have conducted a tender procedure, and that we got the company that has offered the best technical and financial conditions. We are aware that we have among us individuals who with their indolent behavior did not allow this procedure to be brought to an end – they haven’t participated at the assemblies, they failed to answer emails…
Pursuant to the aforementioned, I would like to stress that we are all familiar with the facts, and that we are responsible for the state of the market, that we are accomplices and that we approve the work of a “criminal media group”.
Part of the legal entities, UMI members, through their work, legal or media, informed the competent state and entity authorities, as well as the general public.
Part of the legal entities, UMI members, are behaving totally neutral, indolent, and completely impotent.
Part of the legal entities, UMI members, forward all the information we exchange to members of the “criminal media group”, which was joined since the end of last year by Ivan Ćaleta.
In accordance with all that is said above, I believe that the conditions have been met for the termination of contract with the current researcher, which was proposed and promoted by individual members at the UMI Assemblies.
I also consider responsible those who “sit silently”, because next year we will lose the researcher, we will be left without any alternative, which will cause chaos in the market.
Regards,
Elvir Švrakić
CEO Hayat Sarajevo